Columnist Nick Christensen: Top passing games set to run into each other

Nick Christensen

Friday, Sept. 17, 2004 | 10 a.m.

Nick Christensen covers high school athletics for the Las Vegas Sun. Reach him at (702) 259-4085 or by e-mail at nick.christensen@lasvegassun.com.

Quarterbacks don't often steal the spotlight in high school football. Keeping the ball on the ground is usually the ticket to winning games.

Not tonight.

Las Vegas' two top quarterbacks -- Eldorado's Brandon Godfrey and Shadow Ridge's Chris Berkeley -- face off at 7 p.m. at Aliante. Berkeley leads the eighth-ranked Mustangs with 421 yards, with Godfrey right behind, passing for 397 yards for the 10th-ranked Sundevils. Both teams have potent ground games when necessary, and both teams have strong defenses.

"Maybe they're a little bit of a mirror image," Eldorado coach Frank DeSantis said of tonight's competition. "They move around, they're pretty physical up front. They have a very good running back and they're quarterback's decent. They're a well-balanced, good team."

J.D. Johnson, Shadow Ridge's coach since the school opened last season, said he thinks the key tonight is containing Godfrey.

"I look at basically, how can we neutralize the quarterback and his threat," Johnson said. "We saw things Western was doing defensively that opened up DeSantis' running game.

"We can't get caught in a situation that allows ourselves to be outcoached."

Western managed to limit Godfrey's passing, but was unable to control the Sundevils on the ground as Eldorado ran to a 27-6 win. The Sundevils' one loss came to then-second-ranked Foothill, and that was on a last-second field goal after Eldorado controlled most of the game.

Shadow Ridge's two wins this season came to teams that have struggled -- an opening-week trouncing of Rancho, followed by a closer, but still significant, win against a struggling Canyon View team from Cedar City, Utah.

Johnson said he is concerned about the Mustangs' lack of experience with tougher teams.

"It's on our shoulders as a coaching staff to keep our kids in perspective," Johnson said. "We try to go into every game, whether we're playing Cedar City or Rancho, we never go in saying it's an easy game. I wouldn't be surprised to come out and be a little bit shellshocked.

"If we're not ready for it, they're going to get after us."

Spread around town

First of all, a follow-up from last week, and the NIAA's scheduling of the football championship game for Sam Boyd Stadium the same year that the North gets two teams in the state semifinals.

We got an e-mail last week from Dr. Jerry Hughes, the executive director of the NIAA. The coaches voted on the current system, which was favored instead of giving one team a bye week.

Also, if two North teams do win in the state semis, the title game will move to Reno.

But we're getting chilled just thinking about football in Reno in December. Warm, happy thoughts tonight, when we'll find out a lot this week as to who's for real and who's not (and four weeks into the season, it's about time).

How much is Desert Pines really struggling? Are Sierra Vista or Green Valley for real? If Del Sol and Liberty play a football game and nobody's watching, did it really happen? And if Cheyenne's coach, who left Western to go to Cheyenne, says that if Western doesn't "win eight games, something's wrong there," then loses to an 0-3 Western team that has no shot at winning eight games ... is something really wrong?

All the action starts at 7 tonight.

The call: Cimarron 38, Basic 18 .

The call: Bonanza 38, Rancho 21.

The call: Pahrump Valley 33, Canyon Springs 16.

The call: Centennial 37, Chaparral 18.

The call: Colton 48, Bishop Gorman 42.

The call: Liberty 35, Del Sol 24.

The call: Sierra Vista 28, Green Valley 24.

The call: Lynwood 30, Foothill 26.

The call: Desert Pines 28, Mojave 20.

The call: Las Vegas 44, Riverside Poly 29.

The call: Eldorado 42, Shadow Ridge 38.